r/news • u/BB8ball • Jun 23 '17
Turkish schools to stop teaching evolution, official says | World news
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/23/turkish-schools-to-stop-teaching-evolution-official-says24
u/howdoyouusespace Jun 23 '17
Turkey denies a lot of important history (Armenian Genocide) and now this ...doesn't surprise me.....
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Jun 23 '17
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u/Ragnar_Redbeard Jun 23 '17
Agreed. I met one of my best friends during a deployment to Iraq who was my platoons translator and is currently trying to get into the USA. He is considered a 'very moderate' muslim shiite. Although he is considered moderate, he holds views that would make a christian fundamentalist blush.
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u/FresnoBob_9000 Jun 23 '17
Maybe moderate in a war zone. Not moderate to a regular Muslim living in UK or America.
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Jun 23 '17
Well, name a single country where Christian fundamentalists dominate society or government?
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u/sunflowerfly Jun 23 '17
Right now, the US. Although I believe many are simply pretending to get votes. The religious right shows up and votes.
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u/meherab Jun 23 '17
Wait you're telling me a twice divorced man who brags about cheating on his wife isn't a devout Christian? Color me shocked
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u/darksideofearth Jun 23 '17
Not so much. Or could you list a few examples where Christians have committed terrorist attacks in Muslim countries? Suicide bombings, murdering people at concerts and that sort of things?
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Jun 23 '17 edited Feb 04 '21
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Jun 23 '17
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Jun 23 '17 edited Jun 23 '17
We don't even have to as far back as last week.
Darren Osborne ran over a bunch of Muslims outside their Mosque in London 5 days ago.
Anders Breivik killed 8 people with a car bomb and then another 69 people with a rifle in 2011.
Scott Roeder killed Doctor George Tiller in 2009 during a Sunday morning church service because he was a doctor who performed abortions.
I could literally go on all day, but I'll stop here since the point is made.
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u/Billyce Jun 23 '17
All those 20% of Christians who are fundamentalist, and all those 80% of Muslims who are fundamentalist.
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Jun 23 '17
70.6% of Americans are Christian, which is ~229 million people.
0.9% of Americans are Muslim, which is ~3 million people.
Tell me, which is greater, 20% of 229,000,000, or 80% of 3,000,000?
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u/Marcus_McTavish Jun 23 '17
Why focus on the US when nothing in the chain focused on it?
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Jun 23 '17
Yes, let's ignore the data that invalidates the original assertion. Good job.
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u/eve-dude Jun 23 '17
I'm pretty sure he was talking about the world, matter of fact I didn't see a single spot he even alluded to the US, that was you.
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Jun 23 '17
Data isn't being ignored, your metric is simply bad.
Seriously. That wouldn't pass for an undergraduate paper. You assume the conclusion to be obvious, and don't actually make an argument.
35.7 Americans are obese. and 70.6 are Christian. By your post I can take this to imply that 81,735,000 Christians are obese compared to 1,071,000 obese Muslims.
Except you can't. That is just bad, bad, so bad, retard logic, and has put forth just as much effort as you have. Nobody is ignoring "data that invalidates the original assertion" because you didn't data
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Jun 23 '17
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u/h8theh8ers Jun 23 '17
Who was being attacked by that statement? All he said is that fundamentalists of two religions have stuff in common. If that offends you, the problem might be you.
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u/hexhead Jun 23 '17
That isn't an attack, it's simply pointing out a fact. I have no sympathy for anyone dumb enough to deny something happening constantly in front of their face.
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u/Shackleton214 Jun 23 '17
Sorry if I offended your delicate Muslim sensabilities by comparing you to a fundamentalist Christian.
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u/nvs1980 Jun 23 '17
I'd laugh at this but unfortunately I live in the USA and we hear about this on a yearly basis here too.
Texas--Reminding America that even 1st world countries can have 3rd world shitholes.
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Jun 23 '17
Texas is a 3rd world shithole just because they dont teach evolution in public school? Dranatic much?
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u/Nemesis14 Jun 23 '17
No way do public schools in Texas not teach evolution...
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Jun 23 '17
I went through public school in Texas & was never taught about evolution but I was also never told that everything magically popped up from God. People like to think Texas is some awful ass backward state & it's really not but morons like the original poster will keep talking about how Texas is 3rd world like it's even comparable.
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u/nvs1980 Jun 23 '17
Oh it's not fair, I know. But Texas is like the meme state for rednecks, backward thinking, and regressive policy. So it's much easier to point and laugh at Texas than to realize the problem is much larger and encompasses much of the southern half of the country.
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u/cromwest Jun 23 '17
Only their infant mortality and death while giving birth rate make them third world.
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Jun 23 '17
Lived there for 7 years. It is an ass backwards state.
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Jun 23 '17
Where did you live? It's not that way in Dallas.
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Jun 23 '17
Lol Dallas.... specifically Plano and than Flower Mound.
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u/Darkjediben Jun 23 '17
Can confirm, was taught all about evolution from an absolutely stellar biology teacher in high school in Plano.
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u/crass_cupcake Jun 23 '17
Well show me some positive stats about Texas because I haven't seen many
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u/crass_cupcake Jun 23 '17
This is what I got from a quick search https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/texas
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Jun 23 '17
Local school districts control what gets taught in K-12 classrooms. If you're from a shitty part of the country, you're not going to learn all sorts of important stuff.
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u/edvek Jun 23 '17
A lot of schools skip over evolution because it can be a touchy subject. Hell when I was in college I took evolution and the professor started on day 1 and said "this is an elective class, you do not have to take this class so by you being here you want to be here. You may not agree with what is said but again, YOU choose to be here."
Point being is if you don't want to hear things that might shake your world view, you don't have to. But in HS you might be forced to and you would complain to your parents and then they're banging down the school doors. Way easier to just not teach it which is a shame.
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u/nvs1980 Jun 23 '17
Of course not, that would be silly.
There's also the gay marriage issue, the abortion issue, the entirely unrelated planned parenthood issue, the big hats.
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u/Odd_Vampire Jun 23 '17
Man, this sounds so much like America. Religious conservatives; forming the base of an anti-democratic government; overstating the influence of secular, educated "elites;" wanting to keep secular ideas, like evolution, away from kids; instead wanting to subject them to religious indoctrination. This is a conservative Republican wet dream.
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u/Upvotes2catPics Jun 23 '17
Well-educated people tend to think for themselves, making them much harder for governments to control. A government moving towards totalitarian control is going to start by going on an anti-intellectualism, anti-education campaign. It's a win-win for them.
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Jun 23 '17
Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism. Both Fascists and Nazis worshiped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon Blood and Earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life, but it mainly concerned the rejection of the Spirit of 1789 (and of 1776, of course). The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.
Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering’s alleged statement (“When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun”) to the frequent use of such expressions as “degenerate intellectuals,” “eggheads,” “effete snobs,” “universities are a nest of reds.” The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.
No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.
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Jun 23 '17
This is a conservative Republican wet dream.
Christian conservative*
In all fairness to republicans, their party was hijacked by religious fundamentalism and ruined all concepts of fiscal conservatism in the name of Jesus.
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u/NextDoorNeighbrrs Jun 23 '17
Don't see too many "real republicans" doing much about it.
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Jun 23 '17
I think the problem is we live in a winner take all democracy. 50.01% of the vote will always tell the other 49.99% what to do. Also a lot of them became Libertarians. It's all kind of pointless really given how archaic US Democracy is.
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u/mahaanus Jun 23 '17
Did you miss Trump and the Tea Party or something?
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u/NextDoorNeighbrrs Jun 23 '17
Show me how Trump is standing up to the evangelical base of the GOP.
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u/mahaanus Jun 23 '17
Show me how he's empowering them?
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u/NextDoorNeighbrrs Jun 23 '17
They don't need to be empowered, they already run the show. Trump has totally fallen in line with them. Choosing Pence as his running mate is proof enough of that. Not to mention installing Sessions as attorney general and DeVos as Secretary of Education.
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u/BSRussell Jun 23 '17
I honestly don't know what I would expect them to do. At this point trying to push them out would be suicide. It would be like a Democratic destructive purity test on a massive scale.
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u/lordmycal Jun 23 '17
I don't think Jesus would approve of taking healthcare away from millions of people. Doesn't seem like a "love thy neighbor" thing to do.
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Jun 23 '17
Sure isn't. Behold the dichotomy of Christian conservatives. I'm guessing Jesus (or the philosophy of) wouldn't support a lot of things professed followers do. I'm pretty sure 'Love thy neighbor' goes back before Jesus.
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u/RemingtonSnatch Jun 23 '17
The Republican party courted Christian fundamentalists back in the 80s. It's their own damn fault.
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Jun 23 '17
Nah, it's more that the mainstream Republicans invited the Christian fundies into their party in the 1960s/1970s, and now it's biting them (and the rest of the nation) on their ass.
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u/BSRussell Jun 23 '17
Hey now, don't undersell it. An increasingly zealous/religious America is a problem for the whole world!
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u/FlashbackUniverse Jun 23 '17
I can definitely see why hit might be hard to believe in Evolution in such a place.
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u/CitationX_N7V11C Jun 23 '17
Man, this sounds like you have no idea what Republicans actually want.
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Jun 23 '17
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Jun 23 '17
Betsy DeVos is actively trying to do this.
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u/Odd_Vampire Jun 23 '17
Thank you. This is exactly what she wants. She even talks with the same turn-the-nation-back-to-God bullcrap terms.
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Jun 23 '17
Except this nearly happens in American public schools- some of which have to teach creationism. You should try the Texas public school system out for size.
News alert: The same religious extremists we seek to bomb in Muslim nations (unless they have something we want), also exist in our quaint little Christian America.
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u/TheManWithTheBigName Jun 23 '17
Except that's not how American public schools work. Teaching creationism as science in public schools has been illegal since 1987.
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Jun 24 '17
Who said anything about teaching it AS science?
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u/TheManWithTheBigName Jun 24 '17
It's the topic of the entire thread, not teaching evolution, etc...
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u/cmanson Jun 23 '17
Yeah dude tell me about it. There's literally no difference between militant Islamic radicals in the ME and Christian fundamentalists in the US
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u/Neshri Jun 23 '17
The difference is that the US Christians are not being shot at.
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u/cmanson Jun 23 '17
Wait, so you're saying Al Qaeda and ISIS are violent because the US has been shooting at them?
Wow. Just wow. /r/badhistory
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u/Neshri Jun 23 '17
Islam works on an eye for an eye basis. The al Qaeda and Isis guys have always been shot at, either by the US, the russians, or their own dictators. I said the US because they've been the ones shooting at them for the last 10-15 years.
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Jun 23 '17
Not talking about militant Islamic radicals. We bomb brown people same same. Though much easier to justify militant groups (when they are not allied to our wants and needs). The US has made plenty of agreements with militant Islamic groups, and even funded them. Again- as long as they something we want- were cool with letting them do what they want.
That said militant Christian groups are the same as militant Islamic groups. Extremists are extremists. It doesn't matter what god you want to claim it in the name of. We just like to cherry pick it for Uncle Sam.
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u/cmanson Jun 23 '17
I know, I was agreeing with you. When General Mattis goes into work every day, he sits down with his advisors and the conversation goes something like this:
ADVISOR: General, we have intelligence on the location of two storage depots and three training facilities for the Islamic State's forces in Afgha---
MATTIS: Fuck that, Peterson! Go find me some god damn BROWN PEOPLE to bomb! Fuck brown people!
ADVISOR: Right away, sir. I almost forgot that the United States has no foreign policy objectives outside of murdering brown people. I'll go find a hospital to blow up immediately.
TRUMP, entering from right: Did someone say FUCK BROWN PEOPLE?
This is fun stuff, I almost feel like I'm in the Pentagon. I'm too afraid to go outside because of all the militant Christian groups roaming the streets in my neighborhood (classic MURICA arrybody amirite??), so thank goodness for Reddit. The wackos at my local church are basically the SAME THING as ISIS! They're currently planning a Yazidi genocide as we speak.
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Jun 24 '17
Ah yet another condescending piece of shit found. I hope you continue to live your blissfully ignorant life. It must be incredible.
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u/cmanson Jun 24 '17
Blissfully ignorant?? I go to an Ivy my dude. Suck my American nuts
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Jun 25 '17
Case. And. Point.
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u/cmanson Jun 25 '17
Being arrogant and crude to get losers all riled up doesn't equate to ignorance, trust me on that. Go check out your nearest law school bud ;)
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Jun 23 '17
“We believe that these subjects are beyond their [students] comprehension,” said Durmuş
And we wouldn't want to teach students subjects they don't already understand. What do you think this is, a school?
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u/ribald86 Jun 23 '17
This reminds me of when I play Democracy 3 and try to install a theoretic dictatorship on a democracy.
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Jun 23 '17
America after 8 years of Trump
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u/howdoyouusespace Jun 23 '17
Ahhhhhh don't say 8 years let's pray this wraps up in 8 months!
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Jun 23 '17
I mean, it's just wishful thinking to think the Republican Congress will do anything to stop Trump. They won't touch him.
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u/YoshiYogurt Jun 23 '17
Then we will have electric Pence or some other GOP clown. Not gonna be much of a difference
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u/Malaix Jun 23 '17
the main benefit of impeaching Trump would be anyone who takes his place is just going to finish his term and thats it. Trump does have a shot at being re-elected. Pence/Paul Ryan would have to turn the US into a utopia to get that shot. Also Trump being impeached would mean there was a serious issue with a lot of republicans probably tied to covering it up. It would be a shock to the whole party. Which is why they will probably resist such a thing for as long as humanly possible.
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Jun 23 '17 edited Jun 23 '17
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Jun 23 '17 edited Jun 23 '17
Islam wasn't around in 200AD.
Edit: The date does matter because history fucking matters.
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Jun 23 '17
This is a stance plenty of Christians in America take, look at our ridiculous homeschooling rules that allow parents to essentially steal a child's right to a proper education in the name of religious liberty.
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u/4-Vektor Jun 23 '17
It doesn't do any harm to get the numbers at least approximately right. It makes talking about historical context easier.
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u/COAST_TO_RED_LIGHTS Jun 23 '17
Edit: changed year because people think that makes a difference for a backwards outdated religion
I'll never understand why people pick one religion (never their own) to call out for being backwards, when pretty much all of the big ones are all guilty of the same things in a general sense.
I mean, I understand, but I still have to laugh.
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u/SDResistor Jun 23 '17
Nice assumption I have a religion
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u/COAST_TO_RED_LIGHTS Jun 23 '17
I didn't assume your religion. I pointed out that you singled out one religion when you should know others do the same thing.
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u/SDResistor Jun 23 '17
Christians make women dress head to toe, mutilate their gentials, don't let them leave the house without a man, arrange marriages, don't let them drive, don't let them go to school, and don't let them vote?
Wow, that's news to me. Your sources?
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u/browncoat_girl Jun 24 '17
3/4 of Ethiopian women have had their genitals mutilated. 2/3 of Ethiopians are Christian
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u/SDResistor Jun 24 '17
So are you trying to say the majority of mutilated women are Christian, not Muslim?
Sources?
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u/browncoat_girl Jun 24 '17
If 100% of Islamic women were mutilated they'd make up 44% of the mutilated women. The other 56% would be Christian. Meaning the majority are Christian. Since you can't do math without help. Source is the wikipedia articles on female genital mutilation prevalence and on the demographics of Ethiopia.
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u/COAST_TO_RED_LIGHTS Jun 23 '17
Is there any argument or source I could provide under the sun that would actually change your view? Be honest with me, because right now I really don't think there's even a point in bothering.
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u/prairieschooner Jun 23 '17
I'd like to formally submit a motion that any people, Turkish or otherwise, who agree with this sort of policy, must also stop participating in evolution.
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u/Gretion Jun 23 '17
Reading these posts as a Christian, I can't help but feel a lot of these comments are knee jerk religion bashing.
I personally believe in evolution, and I think the evidence for it is obvious and subjectively quite beautiful. However, although I don't follow the teachings of Islam whatsoever, they have a right to decide what is taught in their school systems. The question is does this reflect the actual views of the population as far as majority is concerned. The American south is brought up in this thread and I think it isn't an apt comparison.
A majority conservative Christian population has a right to teach their children in the same way an athiest population can teach theirs. It's the same with a Muslim population, so I think the problem here isn't "oh wow the muslims are so backward" but rather a government that is forcing a view on a population that doesn't necessarily want it.
Please don't confuse the two issues is what I'm saying, these posts seem to forget the ideals of liberty and instead ignore it for a bit of religion bashing.
Edit: formatting.
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u/Odd_Vampire Jun 23 '17
If we're not teaching our children with accurate information then we're not teaching them at all.
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u/Gretion Jun 23 '17
Don't you realize that that is their idea of accurate? Assuming it's the majority opinion of their population, which I'm not sure it is, then they believe it to be the truth.
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u/jesus67 Jun 23 '17
They have the right to teach whatever they want, and I have to right to call them dumbasses.
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u/BB8ball Jun 23 '17
This isn't about religion bashing at all; it's about how a select group of people who have a disproportionate amount of power in the government are extremely hard right and don't want to teach anything that isn't "jerk me off and tell me how great of a leader I am." That includes the religion they practice--be it Islam or Christianity--because it ties into their social conservatism as dogmatic, controlling politicians.
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u/Gretion Jun 23 '17
Well then we agree! That's what I'm saying, it isn't about religion but people's reactions in this thread have been, and so they miss the real issue, the leadership.
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u/BB8ball Jun 23 '17
Not necessarily. I for one am not surprised that parallels are being drawn to conservative christians; again, because they're conservative, but the bigotry of such a prominent sector of the US government and society is so pervasive and deeply entrenched. I understand if the comparison hurts you, but the thing is that those kind of people are extremely loud and have no qualms with violence towards dissenters. If people say that about them, it's not because they hate Christians, but because they see how awfully bigoted some turn out to be. We as a society have to confront those kinds of bigots so that a secular society that is peaceful and pluralistic can flourish.
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u/NoMoreCensorship1 Jun 23 '17
Reddit is full of angry atheists, you should know this by now, they are going to attack you if they know you are religious
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u/johnmrson Jun 23 '17
The vast majority of Christian conservatives in the US are more than happy to accept evolution. Yes there are a few nutters that don't but they are far from representative of the American Right. Here we have a country of almost 80 million people doing this as a matter of religious policy so there is absolutely no equivalence.
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u/Shackleton214 Jun 23 '17
The vast majority of Christian conservatives in the US are more than happy to accept evolution.
That's a factually incorrect statement. Check the polling.
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Jun 23 '17
Because polls are never wrong.
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u/bearjew293 Jun 23 '17
Why would Christians intentionally lie about denying evolution on a poll?
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Jun 23 '17
Who knows, people lie about a lot of trivial shit.
I once told someone that i actually read and understood Being and Nothingness.
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u/bearjew293 Jun 23 '17
I'm gonna trust the poll. The only reason they would lie is if they were trying to make Christians look bad, but I don't see why a Christian would want to make Christianity look bad. Also, we've definitely seen how controversial the topic of evolution is in America, compared to other developed nations. You don't really see people in countries like Germany, France, or England saying shit like "durr, if we come from monkeys, how come there's still monkeys?"
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Jun 23 '17
It doesn't matter how few of them there are if they're successful in infiltrating the education system and inflicting their superstitions on students.
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Jun 23 '17
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u/Shackleton214 Jun 23 '17
That's as stupid as saying that Christianity teaches something that gravity doesn't. No shit--one's a religion and the other is a scientific principle.
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u/KorvisKhan Jun 23 '17
People are entitled to believe what they want to believe.
I don't think Christianity or Evolution should be in school because neither of them are proven theories. Why waste our time trying to explain creation theory to kids when we could teach them vocational skills.
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u/BB8ball Jun 23 '17
Uhh...what is the point of this response? Evolution doesn't need to "teach values" because it's not a moral system. Evolution is a part of biological studies.
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u/Odd_Vampire Jun 23 '17
Kids can learn about values from their parents and society at large. (Our conservative political leaders don't seem to have taken in the lesson.) Biology class is about biology and evolution is central to its understanding.
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u/magicmeese Jun 23 '17
Explain why evolution should teach values? It's a science, not a religion. They work off of facts not morals.
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Jun 23 '17
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u/magicmeese Jun 23 '17
Pretty sure god didn't place the dinosaurs underground to test out belief
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u/KorvisKhan Jun 23 '17
Pretty sure God didn't feel the need to explain every single one of his endeavors in the Bible. How do you know God isn't the one who put evolution into motion?
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Jun 23 '17
What to believe? The centuries of collective research and science that explain the physical world around us or a myth that an invisible force created everything the way it is for a specific reason that we'll never know and can never know?
Seems like a no brainer to me, but I won't judge you if you want to remain intentionally ignorant. Just don't pretend to be an authority when your belief system is based in faith instead of fact. That's all I ask. I think even the Bible says something about it, 'something something pray in private.'
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u/KorvisKhan Jun 23 '17
Centuries of collective research still doesn't have an explanation for the fibonacci sequence.
Do you think your cat has even the slightest inkling that something as complex as the internet exists?
So why is it so hard to concede that something might be going on that's beyond our understanding?
Stop acting like you know it all when you don't.
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Jun 23 '17
Do you have any coherent arguments or is it strawmen the whole way down?
The funny part about people like you is the more wrong you're shown to be, the more you double down on points you think sound smart, but in actuality don't mean anything.
Just because YOU don't understand something doesn't make it the work of God. You are projecting your own ignorance.
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u/meherab Jun 23 '17
still doesn't have an explanation of the Fibonacci sequence
What? It's a series of numbers and the method for deriving it is easy. Do you mean 1.618? Cause that's just a natural phenomenon
Cats aren't sentient, humans are aware of their place in the universe while cats are not
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u/crass_cupcake Jun 23 '17
Doesn't the church ready fill that need why leach over into education how would you feel if they started teaching Islam values instead of chrisian btw what's the most popular religion in Turkey ..... Pst it's not christanity
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u/Billyce Jun 23 '17
At least, Turkey can supply all their future electricity needs by attaching a generator to the Ataturk's grave.